Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Man sues over having butt glued to toilet seat.

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-11-2005, 10:30 PM:

According to various news reports, Bob Dougherty, 57, of Denver, CO, is sticking to his story. He claims someone put glue on the toilet seat in Home Depot. He got his butt stuck and was trapped in the can for over 15 minutes despite pleas for help. After some wait paramedics arrived and unbolted the seat, which separated from Bob's skin leaving abraisions. He is suing for $3 million.

Wow.

I guess everyone has their price. But for $3 million, I'd glady let some people glue my ass to a toilet lid. Photograph it if you like. Even laugh at me and tell me I have a small pecker. $3 million will allow most people to put up with some insults. I'd even try to pull myself free. Abraisions on butt cheeks? Shit. $3 million will buy plenty of skin care products.

Dougherty took a polygraph test this week. Some other folks say he claimed his butt got glued to another toilet seat in another town. Ain't that some embareassingly bad luck? Bad enough to get caught with your pants down in that fashion just once, but twice?

Question. If you had to "pinch a loaf" in a public restroom and then found your butt was glued to a toilet seat what would you do? Would you call for help, as Dougherty did? Or would you peel away about 3 layers of butt skin trying to get out of there without letting anyone become aware of your humiliating situation?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-11-2005, 10:32 PM:

I'd do it for $1 million, as long as I can retain the movie and action-figure rights.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 11-11-2005, 10:42 PM:

If the rumor is true this could be a scam. Otherwise maybe he'll think to first put down a tissue-paper butt gasket on the next public shitter he takes a dump in. [Smile]

I don't think I'd ever be that unaware of what I was about to sit on, even if the situation was dire and something was trying its best to ooze its way out of me. I'm not the suing type either, so I wouldn't know what to ask for, especially in a case like this. I'm quite used to taking responsibility for my mistakes or other dumb actions.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 11-12-2005, 12:33 AM:

Quite true because even transparent glue is quite visible. One should never just park one's ass on a public toilet seat without checking/cleaning it.
I think they should glue it back on and then send him running through the streets. In this way, he will at least perform a valuable public service by reminding people to check where they touch down.
I don't remember where (I think it was Jay Leno), I saw the clip from one news show in which they reported the story and the anchor lady almost had a stroke because she had to laugh so hard.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-12-2005, 12:47 AM:

I'm pretty sure it is a scam. The guy has a history of fraud and cool stuff like that. Booyah!

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 11-12-2005, 12:56 AM:

What I dont get is, doesn't this type of glue dry rather quickly? And another thing, if it doesn't, the moment he sat down and felt some liquid on the seat, don't you think the logical (never mind the fact he didn't use tissue on it or that protective paper) thing would be to immediately rise up? I would assume there's room for a few seconds before you're bonded permanetly? I saw clips of this guy on CNN and he was stammering when they asked him about his previous arrest 28 years ago.. . he claimed he couldn't remember that, but the police sure have records of it.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-12-2005, 02:00 AM:

Well if it IS true, and he sat on wet super glue, that stuff bonds skin immediately...there is no waiting period. Try a small dot of it on your fingertip and you'll be convinced.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 11-12-2005, 02:15 AM:

Like everyone else has said, this has scam written all over it...me personally, if I have to use a public restroom I'm wiping that seat down like crazy before I ever sit on it...if it looks even a hint like I can't "clean" it up before I go...I hold it and hope to hell theres another restroom close by that is clean.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-12-2005, 11:29 AM:

I'll second that. I have a reasonable fear of sitting down on public toilet seats. The tendency is to get some paper and wipe the seat down as best as possible before parking your butt on it. When you start scrubbing that lid with the paper, you'll be quickly aware that someone put glue on it. Normally, I'm just concerned about there being piss or even shit on the toilet seat.

quote: Mike Blakesley
Well if it IS true, and he sat on wet super glue, that stuff bonds skin immediately...there is no waiting period. Try a small dot of it on your fingertip and you'll be convinced.

That's true of super glue. But doesn't the stuff also tend to dry very quickly? The prankster would need to have miraculously lucky timing to apply super glue to the seat, leave the stall and then hope someone will use that particular toilet before the glue dries.

Really when you examine the logistics of it, it seems even more far fetched than movies using the notorious "fallacy of the predictable tree" stunt. Y'know that one. Bad guy is walking through the woods and stops under a tree. Good guy jumps out of that tree and beats the bad guy's ass. Out of all the trees in the forest, how did the good guy know the bad guy would stop under that tree?

I guess one could call Doughtery's story, "fallacy of the predictable sticky toilet seat."

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 11-15-2005, 10:38 AM:

Well, if this isn't a scam and it actually happened, Home Depot & Lowe's (et. al.) would be the ideal place to pull off such a gag. There's an almost unlimited selection of adhesives to choose from.

Super glues would be the ideal choice. Unless you choose a gel type super glue it would harden in under a minute, thus rendering itself usless. Gel type super glues have a chemical in them to retard the curing action. I imagine it would take up to 5-10 minutes for some kinds of gel glue to harden.

My next choice would be a quick-set epoxy. But, again, the "open time" for such a glue would be less then 15 minutes.

All this means that the perpetrator of such a prank would have to have left the restroom only a couple of minutes before the victim. I would imagine that, if there WAS a perpetrator, he probably would have met him in the restroom! (Assuming that the perpetrator and the victim were not the same person.)

Basically, this means that it couldn't have happened as he says it did. Given a choice of 3-5 toilet stalls, would YOU go into a stall that you just saw some other guy coming out of?!

Posted by Scott Balko (Member # 438) on 11-15-2005, 06:48 PM:

This same thing happened to a guy in my hometown theatre back in the 70's. The stalls were so small in the old 1937 theatre bathrooms, they had to remove the stall walls so they could unbolt the seat. Then with all the comotion going on, the poor guy had to be helped out of the building through crowds of people in the lobby. [Embarrassed]

The theatre owner voluntarily offered to pay the medical expenses and there was no law suit. But that was a small town in the 1970's when people weren't as sue happy.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 11-16-2005, 10:03 AM:

You can almost guarantee that Home Depot starts putting ass gaskets in the restrooms now. [Big Grin]

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 11-16-2005, 12:38 PM:

My company got sued by a guy that burned himself with a cutting torch. He sued the clothing manufacturer, the torch manufacturer and us (our equipment was not even directly involved). His wife also sued claiming mental anguish since she couldn't have sex with her husband due to burns on his chest.

We later found out he had only been working at this company for five days or so and that the mistake was HIS fault. He even had a history of suing past employers in the same way. Regardless, our insurance settled out of court to save lawyer's fees. He even knew the right amount to make it not worth our while to fight for so we would settle out of court. I think he made $100,000 just off of us not to mention what he made from the other half dozen or so companies that he included in this lawsuit. This guy made his living by doing stuff like this and a very good living at that. Un-frickin-believable!

I like to think that these kind of people will get screwed someday too. Probably not though.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 11-20-2005, 12:50 AM:

I have to use public restrooms almost everyday, so I carry Wet Ones™ disposable wipes on my truck to sterilize toilet seats. I don't fully trust J.B. Hunt hats (toilet seat covers), and the wipes give me peace of mind, if nothing else.